Elon Musk's Grok AI Changes Images of Women to Digitally Undress Them
The online network X has sparked significant outrage after users utilized its AI chatbot Grok to change photos of women by removing their clothing.
Several examples have surfaced where the system has been employed to remove clothing from female subjects to show them in swimwear non-consensually, as well as to place them in sexually explicit contexts.
Company Response and Legal Position
XAI, the company responsible for Grok, offered no comment to inquiries, other than an auto-reply message stating "traditional news outlets lies".
A Home Office official stated that new laws is being introduced to ban nudification software. Under a proposed criminal offence, anyone who provided such technology would "face a prison sentence and substantial fines".
"The platform is capable of halting these forms of misuse if they chose to," said Clare McGlynn, adding they "seem to have impunity."
Oversight Body Position and Tool Capabilities
The regulator Ofcom said platforms must "evaluate the risk" of people seeing unlawful material on their services, but did not confirm whether it was currently looking into X or Grok in relation to artificial intelligence pictures.
Grok is a free chatbot—with some paid-for functions—which answers X users' requests when they tag it in a tweet.
It is often used to give reactions or additional context to other posters' comments, but people on X are also capable of modify an uploaded picture through its AI image editing tool.
History of Criticism and Policy
The system has been condemned for permitting users to produce pictures and videos with nudity and sexualised material, and it was earlier alleged to have been involved in generating graphic material of public figures.
"The platform has been permitting the generation and distribution of these pictures for months without taking any action and we have not witnessed any intervention by oversight bodies," Professor McGlynn added.
XAI's own acceptable use policy bans "portraying images of persons in a pornographic manner".
In a comment, Ofcom said it was unlawful to "generate or share non-consensual intimate images or child sexual abuse material" and clarified this applied to sexual deepfakes made with AI.
It said services such as X were required to take "appropriate actions" to "lessen the risk" of users viewing illegal content on their services and to delete it promptly when they learn of it.
